https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WPtDO6KXc8

Sabine Kastner, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Princeton University, is studying how the brain determines what information is most important in everyday scenes. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Kastner is able to peek inside the brain and see what areas are active when a person sees a face, place or object.

“Mysteries of the Brain” is produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the NSF.

NSF BRAIN Initiative Published June 9, 2015

Professor, Computer Science Department and Princeton Neuroscience Institute Principal Investigator, Seung Lab

Seung is a multi-disciplinary expert whose research efforts have spanned the fields of neuroscience, artificial intelligence. physics and bioinformatics. His TED talk “I am my connectome” has been viewed more than 750,000 times. His book Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are is considered by some as “the best lay book on brain science I’ve ever read.” Seung is also the organizer of the Citizens Science project/game called EyeWire.

Web Information

Lab website:  eunglab.org/

Wikipedia entry :  wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Seung

Twitter: twitter.com/sebastianseung 

Contact Information

E-mail:  sseung@princeton.edu

Address: 153 Princeton Neuroscience Institute Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544

Biography

From Wikipedia entry

Hyunjune Sebastian Seung (Hangul: 승현준; hanja: 承現峻; is a Korean American multi-disciplinary expert whose research efforts have spanned the fields of neuroscience, physics and bioinformatics. He was a professor of Computational Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now a professor at Princeton University. He also was an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is the son of the philosopher, T. K. Seung.

Seung studied theoretical physics at Harvard University where he obtained his Ph.D. degree ...

Principal Investigator: Sebastian Seung Princeton Neuroscience Institute

The Seung Lab uses techniques from machine learning and social computing to extract brain structure from light and electron microscopic images. EyeWire showcases our approach by mobilizing gamers from around the world to create 3D reconstructions of neurons by interacting with a deep convolutional network. The Seung Lab also develops computational methods for relating brain structure to function. Seung Lab is best known for our work on the reconstruction of neural circuits using serial electron microscopy.

EyeWire is a game that helps scientists map the brain. Image: EyeWire

Web Information

Website: http://seunglab.org/

Contact Information

E-mail: sseung@princeton.edu

Address: 153 Princeton Neuroscience Institute Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544

Research

The Seung Lab uses techniques from machine learning and social computing to extract brain structure from light and electron microscopic images.  EyeWire showcases our approach by mobilizing gamers from around the world to create 3D reconstructions of neurons by interacting with a deep convolutional network.

The Seung Lab also develops computational methods for relating brain structure to function. To establish this relationship, we often reconstruct the connectivity of the same neurons after observation of their activity via two-photon imaging. We also classify neurons into cell types that have characteristic structural and functional properties. The latter approach was used to create a new model for how ...

Principal Investigator: Carlos D  Brody Princeton Neuroscience Institute Title: “Mechanisms of neural circuit dynamics in working memory” BRAIN Category: Understanding Neural Circuits (RFA NS-14-009)

Dr. Brody and his colleagues will study the underlying neuronal circuitry that contributes to short-term “working” memory, using tools to record circuit activity across many brain areas simultaneously while rodents run on a track-ball through virtual mazes projected onto a screen.

NIH Webpages

Figure: A decision-making task requiring accumulation of evidence over time. The capacity to gradually and steadily accumulate evidence favoring one choice or another is thought to be a core component of many different types of decision-making. In order to establish a rodent model of this cognitive process, we developed a task in which subjects hear simultaneously presented trains of randomly timed clicks, one train coming from a speaker to their left, the other from a speaker to their right. At the end of the trains, the subjects have to decide which side played the greater total number of clicks. We were able to train rats to perform this task, and to show that well-trained animals use a strategy of accumulating clicks over time. Having established a behavior that depends on gradual ...

Principal Investigator: Carlos D  Brody Princeton Neuroscience Institute

Brodylab’s focus is on novel quantitative behaviors that allow exploring high-level cognitive questions using powerful emerging tools for studying neural mechanisms in rats. The lab now uses rats to investigate the neural bases of decision making, working memory and executive control using a combination of high-throughput semiautomated behavior as well as computational, electrophysiological, pharmacological and optogenetic methods.

Web Information

Website:  brodylab.org/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: brody@princeton.edu Phone: (609) 258-7645 Address: Princeton University 119 Lewis Thomas Laboratory Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544-1014

Research

What are we interested in?  Here’s an example: you’re browsing DVDs in a video store. You pick one up– you like it, perhaps you might buy it. But you’re not sure yet. You put it back down, and stroll down the aisle. You compare them; perhaps today you decide to buy the first DVD. What happened in your brain as you went through all this? What are the neural mechanisms that allow you to remember, for a few seconds, how much you liked the first DVD; to compare the two DVDs; to make a decision; to apply the rules of behavior appropriate for the context you’re in (here, a video store)? In other words, what are the neural mechanisms underlying our cognitive abilities? What ...

Professor of neuroscience and molecular biology, Princeton  Neuroscience Institute Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Principal Investigator, Brodylab

Brody’s focus is on novel quantitative behaviors that allow exploring high-level cognitive questions. Brody’s group now uses rats to investigate the neural bases of decision making, working memory and executive control using a combination of high-throughput semiautomated behavior as well as computational, electrophysiological, pharmacological and optogenetic methods.

Web Information

Webpage: molbio.princeton.edu/faculty/molbio-faculty/142-brody HHMI page:  hhmi.org/scientists/carlos-d-brody Simons Foundation page: simonsfoundation.org/life-sciences/collaboration-on-the-global-brain/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: brody@princeton.edu Phone: (609) 258-7645 Address: Princeton University 119 Lewis Thomas Laboratory Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544-1014

Biography

Carlos Brody completed his Ph.D. in 1997, in computation and neural systems with John Hopfield at California Technical Institute. Starting in 2001, he led a computational neuroscience group as an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Inspired by the efforts that Zachary Mainen’s and Anthony Zador’s experimental groups at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory were making in developing highly controlled behaviors for rats, Brody added experimental approaches to his research portfolio. His focus is on novel quantitative behaviors that allow exploring high-level cognitive questions using powerful emerging tools for studying neural mechanisms in rats. Brody’s group now uses rats to investigate the neural bases of decision making, working memory and executive control using a ...